(LONDON) – Vladimir Putin cannot afford to end the war in Ukraine because defeat would trigger his downfall and probable execution at the hands of his own people, according to Bill Browder, the financier turned Kremlin critic.
Browder, who was once the largest foreign investor in Russia before being expelled in 2005, told The Independent’s World of Trouble podcast that the Russian dictator faces an impossible political dilemma. “If he does a peace deal, he’ll lose power. If he loses power, then he’ll get strung up from a lamppost,” Browder said.
The anti-corruption campaigner has waged a 17-year campaign for justice following the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured and killed in Russian police custody in 2009 after exposing a $230m tax fraud by government officials.
Browder’s campaign resulted in the Magnitsky Act, which freezes assets and imposes visa bans on human rights abusers. The legislation has been adopted by 35 countries and now underpins broader sanctions regimes targeting Russian officials and oligarchs.
The financier, who survived multiple assassination attempts and Interpol red notices orchestrated by the Kremlin, said Putin’s regime is “evil but not that great at exercising their evil.” He likened the Russian leadership to “C students from D universities with no real motivation.”
Browder compared the current situation to the Korean War armistice, predicting a frozen conflict rather than a formal peace agreement. “It’s not going to be with Putin signing a peace treaty. It’s not going to be with Ukrainians giving up territory. It’s going to be with the front lines eventually frozen,” he said.
The Russian dictator’s strategy relies on manufacturing a foreign enemy to maintain domestic control, Browder argued. “He’s convinced everybody there’s a foreign enemy. If there’s no foreign enemy, then he’s the enemy. Because everyone has lived a bad life under his rule.”
Browder expressed scepticism about Ukraine’s ability to achieve total victory despite its military successes, citing Russia’s larger population and deeper resources. “Ukrainians are very good at defending. They’re not very good at attacking. When you attack, you incur much greater casualties.”
The financier accused Donald Trump of siding with Putin for financial gain, citing the US president’s business dealings with Gulf states and reported promises to pressure Ukraine into conceding territory. “Trump likes people with money that they’re ready to share with him,” Browder said.
Browder criticised the British establishment’s historical reluctance to confront Russian corruption, revealing that former prime minister Theresa May, as home secretary, had opposed an open inquest into Alexander Litvinenko’s murder for fear of “upsetting diplomatic and business relations with Russia.”
He noted that the same Foreign Office that refused him meetings in 2015 later recommended him for a knighthood in 2024, describing the shift in UK policy since the full-scale invasion as “remarkable” but “too late.”
The Kremlin’s kleptocratic system has seen Putin and approximately 1,000 associates steal an estimated $1 trillion from the Russian state, Browder claimed. “The reason people live a bad life in Russia is because that money should have been spent on schools and hospitals. Instead, it was spent on private jets and villas in the south of France.”
Browder’s 17-year-old son has been sanctioned by the Russian government for his work exposing cryptocurrency schemes used to evade sanctions, making him the youngest person ever subjected to Russian punitive measures.
The financier, whose grandfather was general secretary of the American Communist Party, maintained that well-regulated capitalism remains the best system for prosperity. He distinguished between legitimate wealth creation and corruption, which he described as “government officials acting outside the national interest for money.”
Browder said the war in Ukraine was launched not for imperial ambitions but to protect Putin from domestic anger over his kleptocratic rule. “If a million people march on Red Square, he’s finished,” Browder said, describing Putin as “a tiny little man” who is “scared to death of his own people.”
He expressed cautious optimism about American institutions surviving Trump’s presidency, noting that courts continue to rule against administration decisions and media report on corruption. “The people of America versus kleptocracy” is how Browder characterised the current struggle.
Ukraine has demonstrated that a nation need not be a superpower to fight one, Browder said, praising Kyiv’s resilience and innovative use of drone technology to target Russian oil infrastructure. Between 25 and 40 per cent of Russian oil refining capacity has been destroyed or impacted, he added.
The conflict will ultimately be resolved by battlefield realities rather than diplomacy, Browder concluded. “The only way this thing ends is either the Russians win, in which case we’re fighting with them because he needs another war with the West, or the Ukrainians win, and if they win, Putin will be removed by his own people.
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